Revisiting election 2020 forecasting
Accuracy score: 6.8/10 + bonus forecast for the post Biden era
On Oct 25 2020, this writer set out to forecast the possible outcomes for the 2020 election, worth revisiting now. On a scale of 1/10 the correlation between possible and actual ranks at 6.8.
1- Biden wins in a sweeping 1932/1984 landslide
2- Biden ekes out a slim victory and Trump contests the win, sending the US into a self-destructive tailspin
3- Biden ekes out a slim victory and Trump huff and puffs but doesn’t contest the win, preferring to hedge his bet on the future
The post election months saw a relative mix of these 3 scenarios, with an emphasis on a mix of scenario 1 and 2: Biden won decisively on Election Day, achieving the exact same Electoral College win as Trump in 2016. As expected, Trump ended up contesting the win and did it with such vile and venomous force that he propelled the Jan 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
What’s also confounding many observers is Biden’s accurate reading of the political zeitgeist, turning back the clock on America’s jettisoning of the power of government to accomplish great things.
Biden 2020 will be a consequential and transformative President as his election will end the Reagan era and bring back the force of a rejuvenated federal government as the arbiter and regulator America needs. His successor will not be VP Harris who was unable to enunciate a clear rationale for her run but rather Secretary Buttigieg, whose centrist vision mixing heartland values with a keen sense for the future is a sight to see.
7 months later, a further re-reading of the Oct 25 analysis and the 3 scenarios:
Scenario 1: Biden wins on Nov 3 in a sweeping landslide, massive in the mold of 1932 and 1984
In this scenario, Biden wins in such a massive way that the GOP is reduced to a smallish, regional and white grievance party. This will sever its ties with American business, which needs a party able to wield power to serve its interests, domestic and international.
Since their loss in 2020 the GOP’s continuing Trump infatuation has led its “leadership” to puzzling positions: Mitch McConnell berating corporations to not participate in politics all the while continuing to contribute to the GOP, Josh Hawley playacting economic populism as a soi disant modern trust buster and countless others wanting to punish corporations who they deem to have succumbed to “wokeness”. Post their loss of the Presidency and the Senate the GOP is now a sad excuse for a political party, afraid to cross Trump and openly welcoming racist xenophobes at the very center of the party.
A massive, sweeping win for Biden and the Democrats cements one-party rule with D control of the White House, the House and the Senate.
Democrats’ twin win in Georgia gave it the senatorial majority, an objective few thought possible. Biden has also learned from Obama’s failure at bipartisanship as the GOP is an unserious party intent on showboating vs governing. Confident that one party control behooves risk taking the passage of the COVID relief bill via reconciliation hastened the death of faux bipartisan outreach. Biden recognizes that when one party is elected to enact policy and it has 50 + 1 votes, it uses it, full stop. Biden was heavily criticized during the primaries and the general election for his default bipartisan overtures, he’s correctly assessed that the GOP is a fully unserious party not worth kowtowing to. His Senate “friend” McConnell will go down in history as much worse than any of his fellow Dixiecrats-turned-Republicans as he managed to accomplish less than nothing via constant obstruction save for the flooding of federal courts with extremists with thin resumes.
Scenario 2: Biden is able to easily win the popular vote by millions but his victory in the Electoral College is slim enough that Trump doesn’t concede and immediately contests it in state and federal courts. Trump goes so far as proclaiming he’s still President and has no plans to relinquish power.
Even with Biden winning 2020 the exact same 306 electoral votes he did in 2016, Trump was the expected sore loser. His shameful post-Nov attitude went very far and continues to this day. His continuous pantomime on unproven election fraud damaged the electoral process for many of his gullible cultists, bringing them back into the small d democratic fold will be a tough slog. Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch did tip the scale at Fox News but waited much too long, their role as enablers of quasi fascist speech needs to be thoroughly denounced and they should be immediately shunned from all circles of power. Sadly elites shun this necessary step and their cowardice is a sore stop. Trump ends up as the only President impeached twice and the GOP’s utterly disgusting handling of both proceedings have effectively neutered the mechanism which must now be 100% overhauled.
Republicans will also need to explain how they can stomach a President who keeps insulting the Supreme Court where conservatives hold a majority, as well as federal judges he himself nominated. Their thirst for power for its own sake is anti-democratic and Democrats need to be unafraid to frame their adversaries as such, lest America be saddled with another Trumpian figure like Tucker Carlson before long.
Trump is in the pockets of the carbon barons eg Koch Industries whose goals are permanent tax cuts, permanent business deregulation and a wholesale return to 1855. They have a vested interest in keeping some economic stability and will not sit by long should Trump provoke a sharp market downturn by acting like a would be Caudillo.
The Kochs famously started to support Democratic candidates to hedge their bets, the US Chamber of Commerce is sharply diverging from the GOP and business in general is aghast at the ridiculous culture wars formerly sane Republicans are intent on “waging”.
This writer will also revisit another 2020 column on the pre-election cowardice of US businesses as the country was rocked by profound debates.
Scenario 3: Biden wins the popular vote and a slim EC victory, Trump huffs and puffs and threatens lawsuits that never come. He’s too interested in launching the first subscription-based political movement, which will make him a real billionaire, finally.
Trump’s lack of focus and laziness has kept this from happening just yet. His supposedly brillant son in law Kushner telegraphed the scenario of the pay per view political movement because he was looking to cash in himself.
Trump is ALL about the grift, he’s a snake oil salesman who’s found his marks, the poor and uneducated looking for a way out. His threats of lawsuits over the years generate scorn and ridicule because the few he has launched have backfired on him spectacularly.
The revelation of the massive credit card fraud perpetrated by the Trump campaign on its funders, some of whom had very little means, is a testament to the true nature of Trumpism, it really is all about the grift. How this can be tolerated by common sense Main Street Republicans in the name of party loyalty is astounding.
Trump will throw a morsel of red meat to the “base” and scream and huff and puff. In the end his plan was always to be a surrogate President for his base, a tv personality commenting the news instead of making decisions. His entire Presidency is Potemkin style governance, all hat, no cattle.
Trump’s dream was always to be a disrupter-in-chief and he reveled in his ability to “make news”.
The stream of GOP elected officials and hopefuls to Trump’s FL estate should not mask his very real disappearance from public consciousness. David Graham writes in The Atlantic: “But what Trump retains is negative power—the power to torpedo a Republican who won’t stay in lockstep with him. (In theory, at least; we’ve yet to see a test.) He has lost most of his positive power—the ability to make things happen, to hand out appointments and pardons, to push forward causes. “
This writer sets out to connect events and forecast future scenarios.
Joe Biden will be a transformative President and his first 100 days has already produced sweeping legislation with massive COVID relief, Election 2020 will be remembered as the equivalent of 1932 and 1980 in the political pendulum shifts America experiences once a generation. Tomorrow this writer will analyze Biden as LBJ 2.0 and forecasts 2021-22 scenarios.
A teaser: Biden’s true successor will NOT be VP Harris, whose 2020 campaign showed she has no rationale for running, but rather Secretary Pete Buttigieg.